Fuel injection apparatuses for operating an internal combustion engine have been known generally for many years. In the case of a so-called common rail injection system the fuel is fed into the respective combustion chamber of the internal combustion engine by injectors, in particular by piezo injectors. Here combustion quality is a function among other things of the injection accuracy of the injectors. In order to be able to comply with requirements, such as smaller quantity tolerances for example, it is necessary to measure every individual injector during manufacture. The calibration data determined in this process, which is stored in a control unit, can then be used to actuate the injector accordingly. During initial assembly and in particular when the injectors and/or the control unit is/are replaced in a workshop, the calibration data has to be transferred from the injectors to the control unit once again. The possibility of communication between the injectors and the control unit must be ensured for this purpose.
A method for storing and/or reading out data of a fuel injection system of an internal combustion engine is known from the publication DE 100 07 691 B4, wherein injector-specific data stored in a data storage medium is used to control the fuel injection system. Here the data storage medium is connected to the control unit in a first time segment and during a second time segment, before the internal combustion engine is put into operation, it is isolated electrically and/or mechanically from the control unit.
There is however a risk here that human error when assembling the data storage media may result in a data storage medium being assigned to the wrong injector, or incorrect assembly may mean that the data cannot be read out.